How To Survive The Hop Shortage

... Assuming you can GET hops in the first place.

The Great Shortage of Twenty Hundred and Eight. That's what we will tell our grand kids about when they start Homebrewing. They will inevitably think "shudup you old fuck" That's ok, we will tell them about it anyway. You get to do that when you're old. It's the law.

Now, as I write this, Mega-brews, Micro-brews, Brew-pubs, U/Brews, Homebrewing suppliers, and Homebrewers -- basically ALL of us, have pretty well finished shitting our pants. It's done. It can't be undone. All that is left is for us to figure out how to change our clothes with dignity.

It's probably going to take a few years for us to get back to the way things were last year, and probably the next two years will be the worst of it. This is actually a best case scenario because there is good reason to believe that hop farming may never be the same after this. Some varieties may be gone for good.

So what happened?

Floods, droughts, hailstorms, fires, rain... farmers getting fed up, and the corn subsidy that convinced the camel to lift with its knees. Not wishing to use that phrase which has become cliché, and sort of rhymes with "turnip porn", I'll simply say that everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong.

That's what happened. You can't control the weather, but as far as the farmers are concerned, frankly I don't think we can really blame them for ripping their rhizomes out and going with better paying crops. Natural disasters aside, we are effectively living with a market bust. Before the fires and the bad whether, we enjoyed the results of a market glut. We had relatively cheap hops for years. Perhaps they were simply too cheap, for too long. If so, some one had to pick up that tab, apparently it was the farmers, as many of them have now told the rest of us to fuck off... economically speaking.

Despite the fact that barley acreage is on the ropes as well, after some thought, I'm not sure the US corn subsidy can be considered as significant a factor as it might smack of. It's true that Governments are very good at fucking up one market by trying to fix another. For example, by subsidizing the butterfly wing flutter insurance sector, they can inadvertently drive boxed-cat futures into the ground... and not show the slightest remorse when people complain. Why should they? Only crazy malcontents ever go into specific, factual detail. Voters aren't going to remember that shit. Everything is already the government's fault anyhow so there is not much use in dwelling on it.

The corn wagon is a trend, and it wont last forever. Ten years from now when the next big hop shortage hits, there will probably be a totally different subsidy to lay blame on, and all the same old questions will be asked.

In short, it's a moot point. It could have been an albatross subsidy, or just potatoes. The hop farmers bottom line was the deciding factor. As an investment, hop farming is a 2-3 year maturity-- minimum. If a farmer pulls that out of the ground, they must have been burned bad. Even were it otherwise, there still would have been trouble.

Those farmers that didn't get out because of a shitty financial return, had their crops mangled one way or another. Now, we not only have a supply that is far below the level of demand, the shortage is exacerbated by the way we use hops.

For example, due to a less than good season, and lesser than good total acreage, the alpha levels of some varieties are lower than usual. This means that brewers who prefer to bitter by variate rather than pure alpha acid content have to use MORE of a given hop which is already in short supply. More over, the disasters have been region specific. The UK and Continental varieties are in the shortest supply. The only alternative to authentic regional varieties are the substitutions grown elsewhere. ... These previously unpopular hops might finally get some respect, but as those crops are bought up, the shortage will become amplified. Naturally, forgotten stock piles of old crop that no one ever wanted before, are suddenly critical . Imagine trying to FIND the Arc of the Covenant in that top secret warehouse. I would be surprised if Ralph can even find time to go to the bathroom these days.

It's a bad situation, but if any blame can be placed, where exactly to place it would be a bootless argument. What remains for us Homebrewers, is to figure out how we are going to keep brewing.

So what do we do?

It's never been a big deal before this, but I think there are a few practices that we Homebrewers should adopt, and also a few we should consider abandoning. Before I cover the inevitable issue of substitution, I'm going to talk about what we can do to minimize our total hop consumption.

1- Bitter with high alpha hops, exclusively

REGARDLESS of style. Start NOW. Don't wait. I've seen plenty of recipes in books, and on the net that call for Hallertau or Goldings as a bittering hop. That's just not going to be possible for a lot of us, and it's time to face this fact. There are substitutions, but generally those aren't much higher alpha wise.

Columbus has tripled in price, but even at the low end of about 12%, it's more efficient than using a low alpha variety. Remember, things are so desperate now that the issue isn't the price, it's the availability. There are hops that you cant buy, at ANY price. They simply do not exist.

If you're still experiencing some revulsion, just remember that we add aroma hops for good reason. If a hop is boiled long enough to isomerize its alpha acids, the aroma will be all but gone. Like wise, if a hop is added just at the end of the boil, nothing but the oils which contain the aroma will make their way into the wort. In short, the hops that bitter, you can hardly smell, and the hops you can smell, are impossible to taste. We all know how our sense of smell plays into our overall perception of taste. Bittering, and aroma, each by it's self presents only one dimension, but put together, and properly balanced together, they make up a cohesive spectrum of flavor, or at least the illusion of one.

I agree that this is a bit of a black and white attitude to take on the issue of bittering, but like it or not, we may eventually find ourselves compelled to adopt it. Why? Well, because of the Mega-brew demand for hop extract, high yielding, high alpha hops will dominate the fields in the coming seasons. Ironically it was the excess inventory of hop extract from the height of the glut sixteen years ago that kept prices depressed for so long that it gradually drove farmers out of the market. Now that the old stock pile is finally gone, the farmers we have left will grow for that resurgent demand, as they have little incentive to dedicate much acreage to low yielding low alpha hops.

2- No AAU specific hop additions beyond bittering

This is another luxury we may have to abandon. Perhaps it's long overdue. There are plenty of hop schedules which call for 30 minutes, 15 minutes, and 60 minutes. Frequently, I see these sorts of hop schedules specified in AAU... WHY?

There is no known correlation between aroma and bittering power. When you see late mid additions specified in AAU it's probably because some one recorded the hop quantities they used most recently in AAU, but that changes from crop to crop, and so it's only useful to quantify total bittering power, not aroma.

If the goal is to impart aroma, then most of the time, one ounce in 23 Litres at the end of the boil, and another ounce in the secondary, or the keg, will be enough. If you have a beer which plays to the strengths of malt, such as a brown ale, Scottish ale, or a lager which features a lot of caramel/crystal malt, you could use even less. Stouts, porters, and wheat beers work perfectly well without ANY aroma hops for this reason. Having said that, I suggest that you don't just take this issue from the point of view of adherence to style. It's true of any beer which features its malt, that aroma hoping can be counterproductive if you use too much.

If the goal is to impart bittering, then what of the AAU that could become isomerized in 30 minutes or 15 minutes should be added to the bittering addition. Likewise, why let aroma boil away and vanish for 30 minutes, or 15 minutes when you could just add its share in hops to the finishing addition, and a dry hopping.

By abandoning mid boil additions all together, or at least AAU specified mid boil additions, we can use less hops per batch. To do otherwise in this time of crisis is a waste. Mid boil additions NECESSARILY mean waste. It's a form of good inefficiency that works great when you have an easy supply of hops. Now that we have the shortage to live through, the grim details become apparent. In terms of utilization of bittering vs aroma, mid boil additions represent the drawbacks of both and the benefits of neither. You have to waste aroma to get early mid boil bittering, and waste bittering to get late mid boil aroma.

The exception to this would be any beer which plays to the strength of hops at the low end of the AAU scale. The best example, being a pilsner. The malting is already subtle, so mid additions can come through with effect. In this case I would suggest dispensing with all but the late mid additions. If we have to cut corners, let us cut where it counts, and remember why it counts. Bittering, vs aroma, vs malting swings both ways. Light lagers are thinly malted, but their hoping is also delicate. "Balance" is not just a buzz word that you read on the back of an imported bottle in the liquor store.

3- In a blended finishing addition, blend for intensity, if not for character

This is where the question of aroma counts most. Lets say that you have a recipe which calls for a citrus hop to hit the high note, but it specifies an English hop to cut that sharpness slightly, and so round the total aroma out. Assuming no English hops, it's not unreasonable to use a less intense citrus hop as a substitution.

Remember that our perception of flavor is very malleable, from moment to moment. This is why the less hopy beers go first during a beer tasting. If your hops are proportioned right, the perception of rounded flavour can be achieved. Granted, It might not be perfect, or the SAME as what you're accustomed to, but it will certainly be an achievement, and a shining light to break the darkness of the long night we have ahead of us.

4- Plan a brew to taste, not numbers

Of the recipes I see, if the hops aren't specified in AAU for mid or late additions, they are specified in IBU. This is even less useful to Homebrewers. It's literally like specifying a volume of gasoline in miles to the gallon. What am I talking about? Well firstly, calculating your actual utilization is difficult. Now, I am NOT saying that we Homebrewers are not smart enough to figure this out. I'm saying that we don't NEED to figure it out, and even if we do, other Homebrewers aren't necessarily going to benefit from looking at our data.

Factors that affect utilization like wort density, boil time, and even atmospheric pressure are hard enough to repeat from brew to brew, never mind quantifying them in the first place. Secondly, even with accurate information, and good consistency, plugging these figures into a formula is not necessarily going to give an accurate prediction. There are many different formulas in use, and they can give wildly different results. Finally, most people don't have a UV spectrometer in their kitchen or garage, so they will never be able to confirm their IBU after the fact, even if they happen to have made an accurate prediction before the brew.

To sum up, despite what complex math combined with estimation of our own system's efficiency might tell us, the only factor we have certain knowledge of, and strict control over, is HOW MUCH hops we add to the beer.

Go with AAU for bittering, and dry weight for finishing. Don't listen to brewing software, listen to your tongue, and your nose. If you find that a brew didn't turn out quite right, just adjust the amount of hops next time. A chef de cuisine doesn't evaluate a sauce with a slide rule, they will taste the stuff, and make changes if they have to.

Granted, we Brewers have to wait till the ferment is finished before we get to evaluate our product, and by that point there is little, if anything, that can be done to remedy any short coming. However we CAN use our experience to plan improvements for the next brew.

At this point, you might be thinking "all well and good smart ass, but how about a frame of reference?"

Well, assuming average stove top Homebrewing efficiency, in 23 Litres, these are some perfectly acceptable starting points:

At the low end, such as pilsners and wheat beers:

5 AAU

In the middle range of ales, pale ales, stouts and porters:

9-12 AAU

At the high end, being IPAs:

15 AAU (or a bit more)

Starting points yes, but how do you apply these to a specific brew when every ounce counts?

Here is an example. Lets assume that you have your heart set on an IPA. Maybe your a hop head and would like it a little stronger than usual-- say, 16 AAU. This is your number, how are you going to make this work?

Lets take a hop that's not out of character for this beer, UK Goldings, and lets be generous with the AAU, and assume 5.5%. When figuring out how much of a given hop you need to use to hit a total AAU for a bittering addition, simply divide the desired total AAU by the alpha rating of the hop you are considering. The resulting number will give you your quantity in ounces.

In the above example this would be the math: 16 / 5.5 = 2.909090... etc. SO, about 3 Ounces of Goldings is how much your going to have to use to BITTER this beer. For me this would cost $6 CND. Not an arm and a leg, but that mini bail at my Homebrewing supplier's shop isn't going to last long. There is a better way...

What if you decided to use Centennial as a bittering hop? Lets be mean this time, and assume only 9.5 AAU. 16 / 9.5 = 1.684210, so about 1.7 Ounces. That's an improvement, but I sure like the smell of Centennial. I like it as much as the smell of Goldings. What about you? Why throw away good aroma when there are still options?

Lets take Columbus in the middle of it's range at 15 AAU. 16 / 15 = 1.066666. Practically that's 1.07 Ounces. If you wanted to go a bit above your original target you could just go with 1.1 Ounces. If you decided that just a regular IPA would be fine, you could just go with one ounce... yes, ONCE OUNCE, rather than three.

What's the big deal? It's only three ounces?

The big deal is, how many beers do you want to brew?

2 Ounces of Centennial can finish two IPA's or bitter one. 3 Ounces of Goldings can finish THREE IPA's or bitter one. 1 Ounce of Columbus can either bitter, or finish one IPA, but if you use it to bitter, your preserving your other hops for other brews.

This relationship becomes even more apparent when we get into the low AAU beer styles. Lets say your target AAU for the total bittering addition is 5 AAU. Lets assume Tettnager at the middle range of 4.5%. Do the math and 1.1 Ounces Tettnager will be the practicle result. At this point, it takes about as much to bitter as it does to finish. What if you got your hands on 6 Ounces of Tettenager? You could blow that all on three brews, or you could bitter SIX brews with 2 Ounces Columbus and finish them all with Tettenager.

Now, I'm not suggesting that we bitter everything with Columbus. Even if you would like to take my advice to the letter, you may not be able to get your hands on any. No mater your options, It's the MATH that counts as even in the most desperately shitty predicaments you will still be able to make judgements that will minimize your hop usage. All you have to do is evaluate your available hop AAU to your target AAU range per brew.

In each range, some variation below, above, or in-between is just fine-- provided YOU like the taste. You're the Brewmaster. It's YOUR decision. If you're more efficient than regular stove top, you don't have a problem. If you're less efficient, just add an extra half ounce or more. It's a simple problem with a simple solution. If you bitter by AAU rather than variety you can make better use of aroma hops, and making better use of what we have is the name of the game.

What about substitution?

For reasons given above, aroma is the more critical factor when it comes to substitution. This is a notoriously subjective, and difficult characteristic of hops to quantify, but I'll give it a go anyway. In terms of aroma, hops fall into roughly three categories.

Grass, Grape Fruit, and Nobles.

The Grassy

These are traditionally used in English styles. They have a mellow-sweet, grassy-green aroma. Their bittering power is generally weak to medium, and they will work fine over any malt profile if used in good proportion.

The Noble

Hallertau, Tettnanger, Saaz, and Spalter, (and their many descendants) are traditionally used in continental beers, and are heavy on aroma, usually week in the bittering department, and work best over low malt profiles.

The Grape Fruit

These are mostly North American cross breeds which have that distinct "C-Hop" type aroma. It's a citrus like range which runs from "pine needles" to "flowers". They are typically strong in bittering power, and thank the beer gods for that.

As I have stated, unless you are trying to achieve something like a perfect pilsner, any hop can be used to bitter any beer. The issue is simply one of cost/availability/AAU. In terms of aroma however, you will probably prefer to substitute within the same category, and I certainly hope you will be able to. Substitution within a category is not only the most basic criteria, it's also the last criteria. In other words, If you can't get ANY Grassy hops AT ALL... I'm not saying you're shit out of luck, you're just mostly shit out of options.

You certainly wouldn't have to stop brewing. I've tried Noble type hoping over heavy malt profiles a few times, and the results were... eh... Why not try it out for yourself?

If you CAN get at least one type of hop from each category, you're in good shape. That one hop wont necessarily be a perfect substitution for every other hop from the same category, but for the next year at least, ANY substitution might be a challenge. For my part, I know a quick list of substitutions for each category based on what is nominally available from my local Homebrewing supplier. Though it's a big enough list to make any kind of beer you want, even at the best of times, it's a small list compared to the totality of known hops. What selection of hops that might be available to YOU will probably be different, so rather than just plagiarizing some other person's exhaustive list, I'll throw a few good links your way:

There is of course a Hop Union's booklet in PDF format.

Then there is Beeradvocate.com

Last, but not least, there is Brew Your Own Magazine.

These lists are pretty extensive, and there are a few others to be found on the net. However, one thing to be aware of when referencing any list is that though many hops might be listed, the substitutions for each hop are not necessarily complete. Remember that these lists were composed during the glut, and so could easily be conservative in favor of ideal results, or simply incomplete due to lack of information.

Within categories we have a lot of latitude.

Far more latitude than is generally known. This is the most important thing I have to say when it comes to aroma hops. If you reference a hop list for substitutions, you might not be getting the whole story.

For example, one list details Simco as having no known substitutions. That's not exactly true. Columbus CAN be used as an aroma hop, and in place of Simco. I've tried it. It has a very similar effect to Simco. It's not exactly the same, but it's very close, and more similar than it is different. Other than some Brew-pubs, I don't know that a lot of professional Brewers have tried Columbus as a finishing or dry hop, never mind as a substitution for Simco.

In another list, the details for Hallertau Mittelfrüh suggest Liberty, German Tradition, or Ultra as substitutions. The list omits Crystal and Mt.Hood. Like wise, neither Liberty, nor Hallertau are listed as substitutions for Mt.Hood. More over, Liberty can substitute Crystal, but crystal can't substitute Liberty.

What the fuck is going on?

I'm not sure. I imagine it's hard enough to cover all the basses on a baseball diamond. It's even harder to cover all the bases when the diamond suddenly expands into an octagon... It would be even harder not to step on some one's toes in the attempt. I don't have to worry about that so much as I'm just a lone whack job. I don't even have a reputation to risk really. If I ever cultivate one it wont be based on my knowledge of hops.

To the point, there are a lot of opinions, and/or market perceptions out there, and they are either bullshit, or so trivially accurate that a decision NOT to Brew a pilsner, wheat, or Belgian beer because all you could get was Crystal, would be... extraordinary, and not automatically based on good information.

When researching a hop, don't take the write-ups on aroma at face value. I wouldn't do this, even at the best of times.

... I mean, how many different ways can you combine the words "earthy", "spicy", "floral" "herbal", "citrus", "clean", "mild" or "crisp" for thirty different things in the same list, and still communicate something meaningful?

It's all bullshit...

Yes I said that... EVERY hop is "herbal", and I don't know of any "dirty", or "dull" hops, so saying "clean", or "crisp" doesn't convey much. Even saying "Grassy", "Grapefrute", and "Noble" is little better than saying "Red", "Green", and "Blue", but in that case, it's about as concrete a starting point as we are going to get.

The best way to know how a hop will finish your beer is to try it, and compare those results to previous brews. When you're scouting out a new hop you have never tried, there is a much better clue to its character than "mildly spicy". This is where some of the lists on the net are useful. Look into the hop's pedigree. What was the hop's intended purpose? Many of the hops we know were bred with the intention of producing a more disease resistant, or higher yielding version of an already commercially successful breed. A perfect example can be found in the Hallertaus.

Crystal, Mt. Hood, and Liberty are all descendants of Hallertau. They were all intended to replace Hallertau. What market reception they have had in the past compared to Hallertau is not necessarily due to any real short coming. Professional Brewers who might have turned their noses up at these hops before, are probably a little more flexible in their selection at this point, and it's about time. The three Hallertau daughters are so similar that regardless of whether you prefer one over the other, they fulfill the category, and for the foreseeable future, THAT'S what counts.

To conclude...

For each of us, regardless of our own personal preference, or experience, NOW would be a good time to stop making prejudicial decisions based on what we have heard or read. (that includes anything you read on THIS web-site) I know that at least one book states that U.S. Hallertau is "no good". What does no good mean though? Dose it mean that it's not exactly the same as German Hallertau? Well neither is Hersbrucker, or Spalter Select, but this hasn't stopped the Germans from brewing pilsner with them.

US Goldings is another much maligned hop, but just recently, my local Homebrewing Supplier managed to get hold of an entire mini bail. I fully intend to brew with the stuff... I mean, why not?

If you CAN get your hands on some 2007 US Hallertau or Goldings, it's because some long suffering farmers STUCK WITH US last season, when others bailed out. We can do one of two things here. We can be obstinate cry babies, or we can throw the farmers we have left a god damned bone by trying new hops and communicating our results back to the brokers.

Rather than taking this shortage as an omen that we should gnash our teeth and pull out our hair until the darkness passes, we should make the most of it. It's an opportunity to expand our horizons by trying new things.

Besides... It's not like we have much choice, and there is no percentage in resenting this state of affairs. Necessity is the mother of invention, and the law of supply and demand is clear enough. If we show a willingness to try the new, we may find that we will have MORE to choose from in the future, perhaps far more than we have ever taken for granted in the past.

...I hope.